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Class L 1> S b 

Book 



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THE 



SECOND WAR OF REVOLUTION. 



BY A TIRGINIAW. 



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THE 



SECOND WAR OF REVOLUTION; 




THE GREAT PRiy^IPLLS INVOLVED IN THE PRESENT 
CONTROVERSY BETWEEN PARTIES. 



We are in the midst of a Revolution bloodless as yet. — Mr. Clay. 
No Sabbatha are recojnized in a Revolution. — ifr. Webster. 
"Watchman, what of the night ?" 




BY A VIRGIMAX, 



•REPRINTED FROM THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW PC'R MAY. 1S39. 



c^WASHINGTO^": 

AT THX OFFICE OF THE rEilOCKATIC REVIEW. 



1839. 



THE 



SECOND WAR OF REVOLUTION. 



■' When the people of the United States resolved to put an end to the corporation 
which, rising upon the ruins of tlie old continental currency, amidst the wants and dis- 
tresses of the revolution, early displayed its native instinctive hostility to justice, 
equality, and the liberties of the people; and which, after a few years of into-regmim 
and anarchy — while the people, burthened with the debts they had incurred as the 
price of their liberty, were torn by rival factions, and distracted by the petty jeal- 
ousies of thirteen sovereign States — was ingrafted into their new government before 
they had learnt its strength and resources, distinctly marked its limitations, or tested 
its capacity for good or evil; and which again, after a few years' suspension of its 
existence, reviving, like a phosnix, from the ashes of national calamity, clothed with 
renewed strength, and endowed with mightier privileges, was forced upon their 
necks, under the pretence of expediency and necessity, in the midst of war and na- 
tional calamity. When they resolved to destroy an institution so created in violation 
of the Constitution, and after long experience and repeated trials of its dangerous ten- 
dencies, it was not the mere paper charter — the parchment roll filed away among the 
records of legislation — which they wished to have annihilated; nor was it the types 
and machinery by which paper is manufactured into money which were th'^ objects 
of their hostility; none of these things could call forth those deep feelings of opposi- 
tion and repugnance which the people have manifested for more than half a century, 
and which, growing stronger and stronger by every day's experience, have at length 
become fixed in a solemn resolution to risk every consideration in the unflinching 
resolution to confine all money corporations to their legitimate sphere of promoting 
commercial utility alone.* 

♦ Minutes of the Assembly, March 21, 1785. Petitions from a considerable number of the 
inhabitants of Chester county were read, representing that the bank at Philadelphia liad 
fatal effects upon the community : that whilst men are enabled, by means of the bank, to 
receive near three times the rate of common interest, and at the same time receive their 
money at very short warning, whenever they have occasion for it, it will be impossible for the 
husbandman or mechanic to borrow on the former terms of legal interest and distant payments 
of the principal ; that the best security will not enable the person to borrow ; that e.xperience 
clearly demonstrates the mischievous consequences of this institution to the fair trader ; that 
impostors have been enabled to support themselves in a fictitious credit, by means of a tem- 
porary punctuality at the bank, until they have drawn in their honest neighbors to trust them 
■with their property, or to pledge their credit as sureties, and have been finally involved in 
ruin and distress ; that they liave repeatedly seen the stopping of discounts at the bank ope- 
rate on the trading part of the community with a degree of violence scarcely inferior to that 
of a stagnation of blood in the human body, hurrying the wretched merchant who hath debts 
to pay into the hands of griping usurers ; that the directors of the bank may give such prefer- 
ence in trade, by advances of money to their particular parties, as to destroy that equality 
■which ought to prevail in a commercial country; that paper money has often proved benefi- 
cial to the State, but the bank forbids it, and the people must acquiesce ; therefore, and in 
order to restore public confidence and private security, they pray that a bill may be brought 
in and passed into a law, for repealing the law for incorporating the bank. 

March 28. The report of the committee, read March 25ih, on the petitions from the 
counties of Chester and Berks, and the city of Philadelphia and its vicinity, praying the 
act of the Assembly whereby the bank was established at Philadelphia may be repealed, 
■was read the second time, as follows, viz : 



To suppose that a reflectino;, self-governing people can be influenced by personal 
hostilities or partialities in such a contest— to imagine that the sympathies of a mighty 
nation can be roused and put forth by any visible, outward object, seen and known 
by one only in ten thousand, is utterly to mistake the true character of mankind, and 
the secret sources of popular omnipotence. It is only as a sign, a symbol of some 
invisible power, that any external object can exert a controlling influence over the 
public mind. AViio regards with more than idle curiosity the painted bunting 
hung out to allure tlie multitude to some race-field or juggler's show 1 But convert the 
idle streamer into the banner of a nation— symbolling and presenting mysteriously, 
as it were, to the bodily eye, tlie sanctity of law, the blessings of peace, the consolations 
of religion, and the endearments of home— and it at once exerts a thrilling power over 
the heart of every human being who owns a country. When all Paris rolled forth like 
a flood, and wave after wave beat against the sides of the Bastile until it fell, can any 
one be so ignorant of the secret springs of human action as to imagine that it was 
the granite walls, or the few miserable wretches immured within their dungeons, 
that shot such maniac fury through the heart of a phrenzied multitude, and endowed 
them with, the instinct, tlie guidance, and the resistless force, of an omnipotent being. 
It was a consciousness deeper than thought, that there, in those dark, antique turrets, 

The committee to whom was referred the petitions concerning the bank established in 
Philadelphia, and who were instructed to inquire whether the said bank be compatible with 
the public safety and that equality which ought ever to prevail between the individuals of a 
republic, b°g leave to report : 

That it is the opinion of this committee that the said bank, as at present established, is 
incompatible with the public safety; that, in the present state of our tiade, the said bank has 
a direct tendency to banish a great part of the specie from the country, so as to produce a 
scarcity of money, and to collect into the hands of the stockholders of the said bank almost 
the whole of the mi aey which remains among us; that the accumulations of enormous wealth 
iu the hands of a society who claim perpetual duration will, necessarily, produce a degree of 
influence and power which cannot be entrusted in the hands of any set of men whatsoever, 
without endangering the public safety ; that the said bank, in its corporate capacity, is em- 
powered to hold estates to the amount often millions of dollars, and, by the tenor of the pre- 
sent charter, is to exist for ever, without being obliged to yield any emolument to the Go- 
vernment, or to be at all dependent upon it; that the great profits of the bank which will 
daily increase as money grows scarce, and which already far exceed the profits of European 
banks, have tempted foreigners to vest their money in this bank, and thus to draw from us 
large sums for interest. 

That foreigners will doubtless be more and more induced to become stockholders, until 
the time may amve when this enormous engine of power may become subject to foreign 
influence ; this country may be agitated with the politics of European courts, and the good 
people of America be reduced once more into a state of subordination and dependence upon 
some one or other of the European powers. That, at best, if it were even confined to the 
hands of Americans, it would be totally destructive of that equality which ought to prevail in 
a republic. We have nothing in our free and equal Government capable of balancing the 
influence which this bank must create, and we see nothing which, in the course of a few 
years, can prevent the directors of the bank from governing Pennsylvania. Already we have 
felt Its influence indirectly interfering in the measures of Legislature. Already the House 
of Assembly, the representatives of the people, have been threatened that the credit of our 
peper currency will be blasted by the bank ; and if this growing evil continues, we fear the 
time is not very distant when the bank will be able to dictate to the Legislature what laws 
to pass and what to forbear. 

Your committee, therefore, beg leave further to report the following resolution to be 
adopted by the hou;;e, viz : 

Resolved, That a committee be appointed to bring in a bill to repeal the act of Assembly 
passed the first day of April, 1782, entitled "An act to incorporate the subscribers to the 
Bank of North America," and also to repeal one other act of Assembly passed the 18th of 
March, 1782, entitled "An act for preventing and punishing the counterfeiting of the com- 
mon seal, bank bills, and bank notes of the president, directors, and company of the Bank 
of North America, and for other purposes therein mentioned." 



were embodied the tyranny, oppression, and despotism wliieh, growing up age 
after age, and piling tower upon tower, was then frowning in wrath from Its lofty 
battlements, upon an enslaved, down-trodden people, and scowling defiance in their 
pallid, hunger-bitten faces, every hour of their toilsome and degraded txistcnce. 

It was this consciousness, deep-stirring in their bosoms, that set the long-sleeping 
masses in motion, and sent them welling and billowing against that which was a 
more complete emblem of tyranny than the poor imbecile Louis, who bore the 
name of Majesty. In like manner, it was not the parchment of privileges, the impene- 
trable walls of a marble palace, or the old De Launay, royal superintendent, and his 
Swiss guards who dwelt therein, that roused the indignation of the people against 
our American bastile. It was a mightier cause of action — a secret, all-pervading, 
overshadowing influence, corrupting their agents and sapping their liberties ; of 
which sweeping, overwhelming power that institution was the sign, the symbol, the 
thinking-head and controlling will. 

The Constitution, after a perilous time of disorder and national prostration, was 
adopted by tlie people of the States for their common defence and general v;oli'are; 
and the Government organized under it had been in operation now some forty years, 
but was perverted in the beginning from its legitimate purposes. That class of men 
who would live by their wits on the labor of others ; who would be clothed with 
purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day at the expense of the toil and 
sweat of the poor man's brow ; who practise the principles of Cataline. alieni o/vidus 
sui profusiLS — the system of Diddler in the farce, "living any way and well, at any 
body's expense;" who hung like a dark cloud of croaking, ill-boding ravens on the 
skirts of our suffering, bleeding armies, defrauding the soldiers, succoring the enemy, 
and in the hour of triumph, soulless wretches as they were, crying beef! beef! while 
a patriot camp was wringing with the shouts of victory and independence; ever 
clamorous for office, scrambling for the merest crumbs of patronage; that class of 
men, the perennial growth of every clime and every age, seized on the Government 
in the beginning of its operations, and endeavored to convert it into a machine for 
funding, banking, and speculating, not only in the national domain, in Indian wars. 
treaties, annuities, and Indian lands; but such was their cormorant appetite, that not 
even the claims of the poor invalid and pensioner, the claims of the toil-worn soldier, 
which he asked in exchange for his youth, health, fortune, and blood, spent in de- 
fence of his country, could escape their rapacious hands. While robbing the 
poor, and plundering the nation, ever fruitful in expedients, skilful in devices, grow- 
ing bold with success, and audacious in impunity, they at length assumed omnipotent 
powers for a government which the people had ordained for limited and specified 
purposes, and commenced a system of unequal and unjust taxation, beneficial to 
themselves, but burthensome to the people — a system of taxation, not for revenue, not 
for the legitimate wants of a Government economically administered, but avowedly 
for the purpose of fostering and protecting the interests of a few sections and cl isses 
of men at the expense of the entire nation. The vast funds, thus accunmlated be- 
yond the just wants of Government, were wielded as a kind of magic wand, to sway 
and influence the opinions of the people, corrupt their principles, change their love of 
liberty into a thirst for gain, and to bribe them into submission and a right loyal 
allegiance, by appealing to their hopes, and exciting the expectation that they would 
obtain a portion of those rich spoils, the fruits of their prostitution and abandonment 
of principle; but which were at length, by selfish and fraudulent combinations, 
expended on some road, or canal, or river, or creek, or harbour, not for the common 
defence and general welfare, but for the immediate and only benefit of those concerned 
in the specuLalion. This stupendous system of partial legislation, of fraud and pec- 
ulation, was checked by the Executive veto on the bill providing for the Maysville 
road; but it still survives, and, Proteus-like, lives in a thousand shapes, costing the 
nation, to this day, an annual expenditure of some ten ortwelve millions. In tracing 
the history of our national legislation, it will be observed that the limitations of the 
Constitution, and the common good of the whole Union, have been rarely considered 



in the adoption of any measure. And with few exceptions, the same observation ia 
true in regard to the Legislatures of the States. To go no further back than seven 
years, the date of the veto on the bank bill, what has been their employment since 
that period 1 Look at their statute books ; they are crowded with enactments to alter, 
amend, enlarge, and create bank charters, banking companies, monopolies, and cor- 
porations, for every conceivable purpose within the scope of human enterprise, and 
even of human imagination. To foster these schemes, to furnish ei pabulum for these 
banks, canals, turnpikes, and railroads to feed upon, the credit of the Slates have 
been brought into requisition, and the people, in a new form, saddled with a national 
debt of more than ojie hundred and seventy millions. The banks, thus sustained on 
the credit of the people, live only by making a lottery of their fortunes, and plun- 
dering them of their property. The thousand petty schemes of internal improvement, 
forced into being by a prodigal expenditure of the public resources, are, with rare 
exceptions, local and sectional in their character; giving no stimulus to agriculture or 
enterprise ; gotten up for the benefit of corporations and individuals, many of them 
altogether useless, and aU put together, are not able to pay the interest on the money 
expended in their execution. 

While the Legislatures of the States have never lifted themselves up to a com- 
prehensive view of the wants and interests of the whole ; never ventured to hazard 
on some noble enterprise for education and commerce, the little modicum of popularity 
by which they held their places, ever scrambling for a distribution of the crumbs; 
intriguing and mousing over their petty, selfish schemes of individual advantage ; 
while thus wasting the resources of the State, and poorly consulting the common 
weal, all power has been gradually sliding from their hands, and falling into the 
possession of those corporate institutions which they, from year to year, had created. 
Where are our men of talents, of wealth, of experience in aifairs — men of influence, 
ambitious of power and distinction 1 Look at your railroad companies, canal com- 
panies, turnpike companies, and banking institutions; there you will find them, pre- 
sidents, cashiers, treasurers, or directors ; men who have been eminent in thecouncila 
of the nation, members of Congress, of the Executive cabinet, and senators, are retir- 
ing from those exalted stations, and seeking with avidity the offices in the gift of 
corporate institutions. And wherefore 1 " Wheresoever the carcase is, there will the 
eagles be gathered together." Ambitious men seek those stations, because they well 
know that in them is concentrated the true, substantial power and patronage of the 
country; that in them is lodged the power behind the throne, greater than the throne 
itself; that they are the steam engines that put all the wheels of Government in motion, 
and draw along after them the entire train of legislation. Nine hundred banks — the 
number is scarcely less — with as many thousand officers, three or four hundred thou- 
sand stockholders, near seven hundred thousand debtors, wielding a capital of four hun- 
dred millions, a discount loan of five hundred millions ; possessing the sovereign pre- 
rogative of elevating or debasing at pleasure the currency of the country ; controlling 
a State funded debt of one hundred and seventy millions, and the stocks, funds, and 
debts of an innumerable host of joint-stock companies, which, together with the 
banks, constitute an organized, consolidated, well-disciplined Macedonian piialanx, 
thoroughly imbued with aristocratic ideas of the nobility of money and the degrada- 
tion of labor ; holding that wealth is a virtue, and poverty a crime, monopolizing all 
the lands, capital, trade, and commerce of the country; marcliing boldly forward 
under the direction of influential, wealthy, talented, and ambitious men ; openly aspi- 
ring to legislative and governmental control ; crowding our national Assembly and 
State Legislatures with hired and unprincipled orators; corrupting the people in 
their primary assemblies at the polls and the ballot-box, and recklessly pressing for- 
ward to the ultimate overthrow of equal representation, and tiie establishment of 
what they designates mild aristocracy — the open and avowed enemy of Democratic 
principles. And well have they succeeded in the accomplishment of their purposes. 
The constitutional form of legislation is an idle mockery ; the people may go through 
the solemn ceremony of electing men to represent them in Congress and the Legisla- 



tures, but so soon as men arrive on the theatre of action, they universally imbibe the 
opinions, and fall into the current of feeling most fashionable around them. They 
soon learn to think that the interests of the banks and of the people are the same : 
" touch the banks, you touch the people ;" they are not long in discovering that 
the directors and financiers of moneyed corporations are wiser than they are, or 
their constituents, and that whatever schemes they may desire or recommend must 
be implicitly adopted. Not to speak of the direct influence brought to bear on their 
hopes and fears — their expectations of some future good or evil resulting from the tre- 
mendous moneyed power of the banks — their personal feelings of pride and vanity 
are appealed to; and really honest, unsuspecting men, yielding to the attentions and 
blandishments of those who know so well how to use them, and anxiously seeking 
to gain the smiles and approbation of those whom they have the weakness to sup- 
pose would reflect honor on their acquaintance, soon find themselves the followers 
and liege subjects of associated wealth. Should these appliances fail, wliich seldom 
happens, the more potent weapons of ridicule and denunciation are resorted to ; the 
keen sarcasm, and cutting wit of the pensioned orators, and hireling presses, seldom 
fail to drive all but the stern uncompromising friends of liberty into silence or neu- 
trality; so that when any question of vital importance comes up, in which the in- 
terests of associated wealth and the interests of the people are at issue, the latter have 
never failed to be found in a hopeless minority. 

Events had been steadily and surely advancing to this crisis for more than forty 
years. Forgetting that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; imagining that their 
forefathers had accomplished every thing in ordaining a Constitution of specified 
powers, and vainly dreaming that all power was vested in themselves; the people at 
length woke up to a sense of their true condition, and found that their creatures had 
become omnipotent — that the reins of government had glided from their own hands, 
and fallen into the possession of an exclusive privileged order ; who, without regard 
to the limitations of the Constitution, or a pretence to the common defence and gen- 
eral welfare, were creating monopolies, immunities and privileges for themselves, 
engines of oppression, burthensome taxes, and enormous national debts for the 
people. 

They resolved to strike once more for independence. With an unerring instinct and 
sagacity peculiar to an incensed and outraged people; they struck at the centre of 
this unholy combination — the sun of the system around which all the lesser lumi- 
naries revolved, and from which they drew their light and heat, and the principles of 
vitality ; they struck their first blow at the Bank of the United States, the main 
pillar of strength to the allied forces; their high tower of defence into which they 
retreated in the hour of distress for council and succor, and whence went forth the 
signal for the rally or the onset ; they first resolved on the destruction of that ' Mother 
of Jacobins,' who could call to her aid a thousand afliliated and kindred institutions, 
living on the pabulum she fijrnished; owing their existence to her will and forbear- 
ance ; thinking, feeling, and acting as she thought, felt, and acted ; smiling when she 
smiled, frowning when she frowned; they resolved to crush this vast corporation. 
In a word, they resolved to level and raze to the earth that which was the sign and 
symbol of an unseen, overwhelming power which had perverted their Constitution, 
corrupted their agents, and destroyed their liberties — the bastile of Republican 
American usurpation, oppression and tyranny. When the decree went forth, pro- 
nounced by the Hero of the Iron Nerve, that tlic Bank of the United States, after the 
expiration of its present charter, should not be renewed ; when that decree was 
sanctioned and sustained by a virtuous and patriotic people, resolved to restore their 
wounded and down-trodden Constitution, then commenced the Second War of the Rev- 
olution. The second war of revolution, only bloodless as yet, because the largesses, open 
bribery, violence, and excesses, practised in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 
vania, could not provoke an honest, self-possessed, and resolute people into similar 
practices, riots, and excesses — and because a sufficient number of hired myrmidons 



could not be procured to fire on their countrymen, and protect, and cover up and ccn> 
ceal the fraud, corruption and profligacy which had been practised at Harrlsburg. 

Seven long years have we been involved in this war of revolution, and have not 
yet approached the beginning of the end. 

Seven years have nearly elapsed ; during that long period nvany have fallen in 
the conflict — many passed from the scene of action; many leaders and whole masses 
of men have changed their position, altered their relations to each other — the old land- 
marks have been obliterated — darkness has come over the path of the people — the 
dear objects of their pursuit seem to have eluded them at every step, and they are> 
apparently, no nearer their attainment than when they first began. Confused and 
dispirited, they have been meeting in their primary assemblies, and in conventions, 
to consult and advise together — to determine, if they can, how far they have ad- 
vanced in this warfare for independence; when they may hope to reach the end; who 
are their f^\ithful friends, trust-worthy guiders, good men and true, in whom they 
might safely confide their destinies 1 They have been crying to the wardens on the 
wall — watchman, what of the night ! — and to the pilot and the helmsman, look out 
upon the stars, take the aspect of the heavens, and tell us whither we are drifting, 
where are the shoals and the breakers, and from what quarter is the storm approach- 
ing. At this critical and trying moment, it is our purpose to perform the part of 
faithful sentinels. Placed as a watchman upon the walls, we shall blow the trumpet 
and warn the people. We shall tell them, as it becometh us, in all plainness and 
sincerity, the errors of their past course — the dangers which now beset them, and the 
means of escape ; so that, if they heed not the warning, and perish by the sword, their 
blood will not be required at the watchman's hand. 

When the revenues of the people were taken from the Bank of the United States^ 
where they were used for battering down the constitution and the laws, were placed 
in other depositories, and the whole subject thus brought within reach of legislation, 
then was the time for the Representatives of the people, in Congress assembled, 
to have matured some plan for the future collection, safekeeping, and disbursement 
of the same — some permanent, well-digested plan, which should regard the welfare 
of the community, and not the interests of a few classes of men — which should 
separate the Government from all extraP-«ous influence, and place it on the broad 
principles of equality and justice embodied in the constitution, and which would 
esteem the moral and political integrity, and the liberties of the people, of infinitly more 
value than the vain attempt to regulate exchanges and currency bygovermental ma- 
chinery. Few, however, at that time seemed to comprehend the true question before 
the country. Many honest, sincere friends of the people, circumscribed in their vision, 
really imagined it was only a crusade against the Bank of the United States ; and 
that when the overthrow of that institution was accomplished,, the controversy 
would be at an end, not dreaming it was a death straggle for power and supremacy, 
an effort on the part of the people to regain their lost independence, to restore to its 
natural and constitutional owners that power which an unjust, partial, and unwise 
legislation had thi-own into the hands of corporations, monopolies and speculators, 
into the hands of amonied aristocracy, a republican oligarchy to which the Bank of 
the United States was the nucleus of attraction, the thinking-head and controlling will. 
The true friends of reform, while ignorant of the character and extent of the evil to 
be remedied, were laboring under a fatal delusion which prevented them from adopt- 
ing those wise measures demanded by the crisis of the times. Taught only in the 
school of bank financiers, they were led to believe that the interests of commerce 
and trade wovild be greatly promoted by permitting the public revenue to be used by 
banks, as a fund to operate on in the same manner as though it were their own cap- 
ital. Such had been the practice of the United States Bank, and all the local banks, 
and such were the doctrines so zealously inculcated by their friends, tliat use and 
custom, and the uncontradicted dogmas of bank emissaries, had at length impressed 
the minds of honest men with the idea, that there was a sort of propriety, if not 



necessity, in a connection of Bank and State in some form — not knowing that credit, 
which they were so anxious to promote and protect, when based on sound capital 
and the actual products of the country, possesses an elasticity and expansibility 
capable of meeting any increased operations of business, and adequate to every 
sudden emergency in commercial vicissitudes, they yielded to the clamor of bank 
friends, and thereby sacrificed the only measure of reform by which the people 
were to be benefitted. 

The local banks, on the other hand, and their numerous friends, never co operated 
in the destruction of the United States Bank, with an honest intention of promoting 
the great constitutional reform on which the people had entered. They looked only 
to the political advantages accruing to themselves, and to the spoils of victory. They 
had been restricted in their operations, checked and thwarted in all their plans, and 
kept in a state of vassalage by the overshadowing influence of that national insti- 
tution. They clearly foresaw that if the Bank of the United States were once re- 
moved, they would, by an easy and natural combination, control the entire legisla- 
tion of the country ; and realise vast sums of money by an unlimited trade on the 
commerce, public lands, and credit of the Union. Possessing all power in their 
respective States, they could not brook opposition, and easily grasped at the proffered 
means of casting off" restraint, and expanding their own fortunes. Hence their 
hostility and zealous co-operation against the Bank of the United States. Their 
motives cannot be mistaken. Never intending to surrender any of their dominion 
and power over the fortunes and liberties of the peojjle, they only desired to clip the 
aspiring wing of one v/ho soared above the rest. It was a sort of Runnymede 
agreement among the rag barons, that no one of the fraternity should be monarch 
over the others — a quarrel of the robbers against their brigand chief for assuming 
more authority than is justly due to him — a quarrel which would soon be healed 
when the band itself is endangered, or new spoils ai-c to be obtained. When there- 
fore we consider the friends of the United States Bank, who well nigh constituted 
a majority of the whole Congress, the friends of the State banks who entered into 
the crusade merely for their own private gains, and the friends of reform who were 
laboring under a delusion, it will not be surprising that so few comprehended the true 
crisis of affairs; and that no sound measures were proposed or adopted. What 
more could be expected of a body composed of such materials, than panic speeches, 
agitation, and a vile sci-amble among the rival interests for a portion of the spoils. 

The wise plan of ultimately producing the reformation desired by the people — of 
finally separating the Government from the banks, by causing them to withdraw their 
small notes, reduce their circulation, and fill up the channels of trade with gold and 
silver, so that the divorce might take place without any injury to themselves, or any 
shock to the business of the country, was talked of, highly praised, held up to public 
view as the most salutary and important reform ever proposed, but it was never di- 
gested into any definite form, or introduced for legislation. It was promised by a 
distinguished senator from Virginia; he pledged himself to its performance, and the 
hopes of the country for a time hung on his movements. But he never redeemed his 
promise. And whether he was deterred by a modest diffidence of his own powers, 
or a dread of the overwhelming majority then arrayed against him, or whether he 
himself was drawn in, and engulphed by the mighty maelstrom of bank influence 
which swept every thing along in its dashing and whirling eddies, is no longer a 
doubtful question. 

For two years and a half nothing was done. From December 1833, to June 1836, 
the banks were under no legislative restraint whatsoever, and were left to run wild in 
their excesses. That portion of the monied oligarchy, who for their own purpose 
desired an overthrow of the United States Bank, having gained their end, went to 
work in their respective States to multiply their local institutions, and increase their 
facilities for stockjobbing, borrowing, speculating in petty schemes of internal im- 
provement, and plundering the people. The friends of the United States Bank 
differing from them in no one principle whatsoever, having lost their favorite insti- 



10 

tution, and feeling a common interest in preserving all power in the hands of the 
oligarchy, naturally co-operated with them in all their schemes, and gave them a de- 
cided majority in almost every legislature in the Union. By their joint operation 
the number of banks was more than doubled in the space of time we are now speak- 
ing of, and nearly nine hundred manufactories of paper money were set in motion, 
pouring forth their rags, really as worthless as when first cast off by the beggars in 
the street ; but endowed with the magic name of moncij, they came forth " thick as 
autumnal leaves in Valombrosa," a perfect shower, not genial like the vernal rains, 
but blasting and ruinous, potent only for evil. It was impossible to have employed 
profitably in the legitimate business of the country, real gold and silver, equal in 
nominal value to those spurious issues of paper money. Trade and commerce are 
regulated by uniform and invariable laws. They require a circulating medium, 
bearing only a small ratio to the actual productions of the country ; and if, by any 
unforeseen cause, those productions should increase beyond the currency necessary 
to exchange them, they would furnish a basis whereon to rear a credit sufficient to 
meet the increased demand for money. A healthy action of domestic trade, and 
a wise increase of foreign commerce, therefore, had no part in producing that flood 
of paper issues by which the land was deluged. The monied oligarchy would not 
have been laboring in tiieir vocation had they consulted the common weal — the per- 
manent solid good of all the people in the measures they adopted. Their object was 
to get the public lands in exchange for their paper — to stimulate speculation — drive 
commerce beyond its wants and its means — to intoxicate the people with the idea of 
boundless prosperity — to make them reckless and extravagant, so that their property, 
in the end, their improvements, and their liberties, also, might fall a prey into the 
hands of those who had wickedly drawn them into tiie snare. Almost the entire 
public domain, amounting to townships, dukedoms, and principalities, fell into their 
hands — foreign trade was involved in a debt of iMrty millions beyond its resources, 
and as a legitimate consequence, an enormous surplus revenue was accumulated far 
beyond the most extravagant demands of Government. Hence there arose another 
difficulty. What shall be done with the surplus 1 We have not only to regulate 
by law the connection between Bank and State, but we have to dispose of the over- 
flowing revenues naturally resulting from that alliance. 

Both of these difficulties were solved, to the satisfaction of the monied oligarchy, 
by the act of the 23rd June, 1836. That law was the work of their own hands, and 
devised for their own benefit. By it, a perpetual union of Bank and State was 
solemnized ; an indiscriminate reception of their paper issues was authorized ; a 
more equal distribution of the benefits arising from the use of the public funds was 
made among the entire fraternity of paper coiners ; and a precedent was established 
by which the annual surplus should be distributed among the States, there to be used 
a second time for their benefit. No schemes could, apparently, be more happily 
devised to promote the ends of the monied oligarchy — the embezzlement of the 
fortunes and the subversion of the liberties of the people. But, by a kind Provi- 
dence, who has ever watched over the destinies of our Republic, their chosen instru- 
ment was made the means of producing their own overthrow — of catching them in 
their own snare — entrapping them in their own craftiness. The act of 183G, instead 
of advancing the welfare of the banks, was the chief cause of the disasters which 
subsequently befel them. But before we proceed to a consideration of that branch 
of the subject, let us dwell for a moment on the extraordinary precedent of distri- 
buting the surplus revenue among the States, under pretence of a deposite for safe 
keeping. 

That measure, more than any thing else, displays the true character and design 
of those who, from the beginning, have controlled the op rations of our Govern- 
ment. A proposition for distributing the proceeds of the public lands, and also the 
surplus revenue among the States, had repeatedly failed. Few were prepared 
openly to avow a principle, whose tendency was to destroy the independence of the 
States bind them as pensioned provinces to a central government of unlimited 



11 

powers, and to blot out every featureof popular supremacy traced in the Constitution. 
But when the same principle was introduced in a covert and insidious way, it was 
immediately adopted by an overwhelming majority ; and that which men would not 
directly attempt, was thus indirectly accomplished. The liberties of the people cannot 
be safe, when, by indirect legislation, a distinctly recognized violation of the Consti- 
tution is perpetrated, and a precedent is established of such evil omen. The dangerous 
consequences of that measure are yet to be seen ; they are to burst forth in full vigor 
at some future day. Be it remembered that the States, under the guidance of the 
monied oligarchy, are plunged into the wildest schemes of internal improvement. 
Jealous of each other's prosperity, rivaling one another in efforts to draw the trade 
and commerce of the country through their own channels, they have undertaken 
gigantic enterprises, and pledged the credit of the people for sums of money which 
would have startled the Congress of the whole Union a few years since. States, 
whose revenues are barely sufficient to carry on the operations of an economical 
government, are borrowing enormous sums, to be expended by speculators and 
improvement mongers, on thriftless schemes which can never be of any advantage 
to the people. Already have eighteen^ out of six-and-twentij, involved themselves in 
a debt of one hundred and seventy millions. That debt is annually and rapidly 
increasing; and all the works put together, on which the money has been expended 
have not, and never will have, a revenue sufficient to pay the accruing interest. The 
monied oligarchy, who have involved the country in these embarrassments, and 
placed themselves in a delicate position before the public, have but two alternatives 
whereby to extricate the community, and save themselves from the denunciations of 
the people. The one is, a resort to direct taxation ; the other, to the surplus revenues 
of the United States. The first alternative they will never adopt, so long as it can 
possibly be avoided. They know very well that while they do not resort directly 
to the pockets of the people, they can cheat them, delude them, or oppress them, to 
their heart's content, and they will never detect the cause. But an open demand 
upon the purse-strings, an actual withdrawal of the taxes from the hands of the 
people, awakens their attention ; it sets them to prying and examining into things. 
They will want to know for what purposes their money is abstracted from them. 
Such an inquisitive disposition would not at all suit the taste of the monied oligarchy, 
who know they could not give a just account of their stewardship. Direct taxation, 
therefore, is not to be thought of; the other alternative is the only one left, and, hap- 
pily for all the schemes of the oligarchy, the very best that could be devised. A 
large surplus revenue, arising from the sales of public lands and the duties on 
foreign importations, can only be obtained by a connection of the Government with 
the banks, and an indiscriminate reception of their paper issues in payment of the 
public dues. Tlicn, besides the entire force of the oligarchy, wielding all the monied 
resources of the country, as we have shown, and pressing the necessity of this 
Union, if we consider for a moment the tremendous auxiliary forces they have in 
those who are interested in the thousand petty schemes of internal improvement in 
all the six-and-twenty States. Here is an honest, well-meaning man, from some 
remote section, sitting in the Legislature of his State. Catching the mania for 
improvement, he has a little scheme of his own, by which he hopes to benefit his 
constituents, increase his own popularity, and retain his seat in the public councils. 
His mind is wholly intent upon that; he thinks of nothing else; and is willing to 
resort to any honorable means to gain friends and votes for his favorite enterprise. 
But he is told that the resources and the credit of the State have been exhausted • 
that a resort to direct taxation would blow up their schemes and themselves at once; 
and that the only hope of success is to obtain a surplus revenue from the Federal 
Government. As the precedent of distribution has already been set, we have nothin" 
to do but obtain the surplus, which might readily be had, could those radicals be 
once put down, and the Government permitted to go on in its usual course. Could 
the public dues be paid in such bank notes as the people receive, and again deposited 
in the banks, to be loaned out to speculators in public lands, and dealers in foreign 



12 

commerce, we would soon have a revenue for distribution, sufficient to accomplish 
all our purposes; to pay the State debt, which has become a serious matter, and to 
complete all our schemes of improvement. Yielding to the plausibility of an argu- 
ment which solves so many perplexing difficulties, and only suggests that things 
be permitted to go on in their usual course, a really honest man, and through him his 
constituents, who would not directly do any thing to jeopard the institutions of their 
country, are made indirectly to favor schemes whose inevitable results must be to 
bring down the States in vassalage to a central power, and finally to subvert the 
liberties of the people. This conflict, therefore, between the people and their rulers — 
the monied oligarchy — the revolution, so far from being at an end, so far from being 
accomplished, has only begun. We are now enjoying a short armistice — living in 
a kind of armed neutrality ; but when the shout for the rally and the onset is again 
heard, we shall find a host of auxiliaries, we little dreamed of, arrayed against the 
people. Many from among themselves, whose feelings and principles are the same 
with their own, led astray by the petty interests of the moment, and duped by the 
plausible insinuations of the oligarchy, will, in the next contest, be found arrayed 
against them. With earnestness, therefore, and sincerity, we warn the people, and 
tell them not to be deceived. The final conflict has yet to come ; the shock of the 
allied forces has still to be met; the Waterloo field has yet to be fought. It 
was only deferred by the catastrophe which has recently befallen the banks — a 
catastrophe brought on them by their own friends ; but ordained and overruled by 
kind Providence, as the means of opening the eyes of the people, alarming them at 
their perilous condition, and preparing them with more earnestness and resolution to 
enter into the coming battle. 

The monied oligarchy having succeeded beyond their most sanguine expectations, 
and overflowing with the ideal wealth poured into their laps by the credit and 
resources of the Government, became more avaricious than ever ; and, in endeavour- 
ing to divide more equally among themselves the spoils of victory, overacted their 
parts ; brought a great calamity upon the country ; exposed the unsoundness of their 
doctrines, and the hollowness of that imaginary prosperity with which they had 
cheated and deluded the people. No proposition in political economy can be clearer 
than this : that the act of June, 1836, was the immediate and prime cause of the 
calamities which subsequently befel the banks in 1837. A few plain principles in 
connection with the history of these transactions will place the proposition beyond 
controversy. 

Currency, like water, is always seeking its level — tending perpetually to a com- 
mon centre. As the little rivulets that bubble up among the hills flow into each 
other, increasing and expanding as they go onward, until they pour their tributary 
streams into the great ocean of waters, so does currency in like manner, originating 
in small quantities in the remote and interior sections of the country, flow onward, 
increasing as it advances, vmtil it finally falls into the great currents which are per- 
petually revolving around the emporiums of trade and commerce. Where all the 
agricultural productions of the country are accumulated, or their values exchanged 
for the manufactured articles and imported goods that may be consumed, there the 
greatest quantity of currency is needed, not only as a standard of value, but as the 
means of regulating the exchanges, and of liquidating the numerous balances which 
daily occur in every transaction. Hence a circulating medium is required in very small 
proportions in the interior of the country. It is always tending towards the great 
mart of trade; and any attempt to disturb this uniform course would be as destruc- 
tive in its consequences as a violation committed on the laws of physical nature. 

An attempt to force water up stream would not be more disastrous than a similar 
attempt to force the currency backward in its channels. The soundest circulating 
medium and credit, based on the actual capital and productions of the country, when 
turned aside from their natural course, and disturbed in their accustomed revolutions 
through the emporiums of trade, would, from the very laws that govern them, fall 
into irregularities and embarrassment. How much more necessarily must those 



13 

consequences have followed the actual condition of those two main springs of national 
prosperity at the time of the act now under consideration'? In June, 183G, some 
twenty-five or thirty banks had in their possession, on deposits, more than thirty- 
tkree millions of public funds. This money, and private deposites, and their own 
capital, together with their credit, so far as it could be extended, were all loaned out 
to individuals and companies engaged in speculations in public lands, private lands, 
lots, improvements, stocks — on enterprises doubtful in their character, and depending 
on remote contingencies for a profitable return of the investment; so tliat the banks, 
in case of an emeigency, contrary to the laws of sound banking, could scarcely 
command a dollar of their resources. All the other banks in llie Union followed 
their example. Public officers also loaned out the funds in their possession, or 
employed them in their own private speculations. They could not perceive why 
that privilege should be allowed the banks and not to themselves. The only expecta- 
tion the banks had of finally returning the public funds was founded on a fortunate 
result of the speculations in which their debtors were engaged, and on their own 
nominal and spurious capital. The public officers had their cwn private fortunes, 
the fortunes of their securities, and in like manner the fortunate results of the specu- 
lations in which they or their borrowers had engaged. And if the same rigid 
exactions were made of the one as of the other, the chances are in favor of the public 
officer, that he would pay a larger per cent, than the banks, on the public funds in 
their possession. At any rate, it is very natural that he sliould think so. And as 
there was no rule of justice by which the bank monopolist should enjoy such advan- 
tages over the individual; and as there was no law ] rohibiting him from using the 
public funds, he followed the example that had been set him ; and, along with all 
the rest of the world, plunged into every kind of speculation. A universal system 
of credit, from the reckless man of enterprise down lo the day laborer, was created 
on the facilities fiirnished by the banks. And they thought themselves enabled to do 
so, in consequence of their connection with the Government, and their possession of 
the national resources. Every body was dealing on the credit of the banks, and 
the banks on the credit of the Government. It is obvious, therefore, that the very 
existence of this gossamer work depended on an undisturbed Cc ntinuance of the 
existing relations between the parties. But many of the Banking interetj. were not 
contented with the existing state of things. A few only of the fraternity enjoyed a 
monopoly that was designed for the whole. ' We should never have joined, jaid 
they, ' in a crusade against the Bank of the United States, could we have anticipated 
such results. We cannot be satisfied with any thing less than an equal distribu- 
tion of the spoils.' An equal distribution was, therefore, agreed upon. 

An act was passed, requiring " that at least one (deposite bank) shall be selected 
in each State and Territory ; and that the Secretary of the Treasury shall not suffer 
to remain in any deposite hank anamount of public moneys more than equal to three- 
fourths of the amount of its capital stock actually paid in; the Secretary was also 
required to see that the banks kept in their vaults such an amount of specie as shall be^ 
in his opinion, necessary to render the said banks safe depositories of the public 
moneys." 

The operation of such provisions, which were intended, in the language of the 
act, "for purposes of equalization" must be obvious to the commonest observer. To 
take the funds out of the natural channels of trade, where they had been accumu- 
lated, and distribute them among eight-and-twenty States and Territories; to 
compel the banks to divide some forty millions oi mowcy OLiwong three-time:: the 
number of depositories; and to force them to check and draft on each other for the 
amount of specie that might be considered safe by the Secretary of the Treasury, 
were operations of such severity as to test the strength of the soundest institutions, 
and to derange the best condition of the currency. If the mere transfer of three or 
four millions, from the Bank of the United States to other depositories on the cpp^ sice 
side of the street, was sufficient to produce the panic, the dist.-ess, and ihc disasters 
of 1834, how much more ruinous must have been the consequences of the law now 



14 

under consideration 1 Out of their own mouths, therefore, we condemn them. But 
this was not all. The banks had to go through the ordeal, above described, from 
June to January, 1837. After that period they were required, within the space of 
nine months, to distribute thirty-seven millions of dollars among all the States of the 
Union; and, within two-thirds of that time, they actually distributed i?ocw<(/-e?gAi 
millions. This vast sum, which had been loaned to individuals, and had found its 
way into all the channels and ramifications of trade, was now suddenly to be with- 
drawn and scattered to the four winds. This fund, so far as it might be used as a 
means of adjusting the delicate relations between the banks and their numerous 
debtors, which it had been mainly used in creating, was to be totally annihilated. 
Indeed, annihilation, a bonfire of the paper, or a sinking of them in the ocean, would 
have been much better for ihe banks than the operation actually required. Boston, 
for example, was made to throw back into Maine, New Hampshire, and other places 
that trade with her, those funds which had accumulated there in the usual course 
of trade; she was required to create a debt against herself, and subject herself to 
drafts, and that for specie too, from regions which, in the natural course of business, 
ought to be indebted to her. In this way, contrary to every known law of currency, 
New York city alone was required to szailev thi licen millioiis, or more, into Vermont, 
Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. But, notwithstanding that ruin was 
the inevitable consequence of so radical and disorganizing a law ; and though the 
banks were forewarned to prepare for its operations, yet, taken as a whole, they 
never made any preparations, took no precautions whatsoever to arrest the evils or 
to blunt the force of the shock that was coming upon them. Instead of reducing 
their business, as prudence, honesty, and a just regard to the welfare of the country 
would have suggested, their line of discounts, and their issues, were actually greater 
in the spring of 1837, just before the suspension, than they were in the autumn pre- 
ceding. While the laws of currency were totally deranged, and all the channels of 
business were billowing up from their deep foundations, the banks crowded all can- 
vass, and madly pressed forward as though they were sailing on tlie bosom of a 
summer's sea, fanned by the breath of zephyrs. 

How the monied oligai-chy could have ever framed such a law, in the first instance — 
for they were alone concerned in it, with the exception of a few deluded friends of 
the people, who had been deceived by their doctrines — has always been a matter of 
astonishment to us. We never could account for them but on one principle, that 
whom God designs to destroy, he first makes mad — quern Dens vult perdere, prius 
demcntat. Believing that he had designed to save our Republic, as an example 
and a guide to the world, we fondly trusted that he was about to adopt their own 
chosen means as the instrument to crush the enemy which had been cherished in its 
bosom, and to frighten away the vultures that had been feeding on its vitals. We 
had no commiseration, therefore, for the monied oligarchy, when, in 1837, they 
brought on themselves a train of calamities. And yet, indeed, they needed no com- 
miseration. They had entire control over the legislation of the country, and knew 
very well how to use it in such way as to cast all the burthens of their own folly and 
madness on the shoulders of the people. Had they not been conscious of their power, 
they never would have exercised, as they did, the high prerogatives of sovereignty. 

Some eight or nine hundred banks, having in their possession the currency of the 
country, resolved, by the common impulse and sympathy of interest, and with a 
simultaneous movement, to depreciate that currency — to debase it, in some instances, 
ten, some twenty, and some thirty per cent, below the constitutional standard of 
value. This high-handed act of usurpation and tyranny was no sooner committed 
than the State Legislatures were assembled to sanction and justify it. If penalties 
and forfeitures were to be incurred for this outrage on the rights of the people, or if 
any restrictions had been imposed on the operations of the banks in any of the 
States, those were the places in which the Legislatures met to suspend the penalties 
and forfeitures, remove the restrictions, make depreciated irredeemable bank paper 



15 

a legal tender ; to extend it through all the channels of trade, by adopting it in the 
minutest fractions of currency; to magnify the necessities which were beyond the 
control of the banks, and had forced them into their present position; and to praise 
their magnanimity and forbearance in shaving, and not crushing, the people. Good 
citizens of the United States, pause here for one moment, and reflect on the brief his- 
tory of one year, extending from June, 183G, to June, 1837. Consider the dangerous 
and fatal precedent of distributing the surplus revenues among the States, as a 
means of corruption, a basis for increased banking, and a rich boon to be scram- 
bled after by the wild schemes of internal improvement. Consider how the public 
funds were scattered among the States and Territories, not with a regard to their 
safe-keeping and disbursement, but solely with regard to the avaricious demand of 
the banks. Consider the bold and reckless career of those institutions, in the midst 
of known and acknowledged dangers. Consider, when those dangers could no 
longer be avoided, with what perfect unanimity they resolved to defy all laws and 
penalties, violate their faith and obligations to the country, and rely on their own 
omnipotence for protection and justification. And consider, above all, the unani- 
mous voice with which your representatives resolved to accept the proffered bribe ; 
and with what alacrity they came together to praise, justify, and sustain all the 
subsequent acts of bank usurpation. Can any man reflect seriously on these things 
and be not satisfied that all power has departed from the people, and is lodged in 
the hands of a monied oligarchy 1 Then would he not be convinced, though one 
rose from the dead. 

But the chronicle of their deeds is not yet complete. After debasing the currency, 
violating every legal or moral obligation binding upon them ; and while calling 
together their liege subjects and willing friends to register such edicts as they might 
prescribe in the premises, they had the audacity to demand that the Federal Gov- 
ernment also should continue to receive their depreciated paper, and retain the banks 
as the agents to collect, transfer, and disburse the national revenues. Entreaties, 
remonstrances, and, finally, threats of violence and revolution, were resorted to as 
means of intimidating the Executive, and forcing them to accept the immoral, fraudu- 
lent, and debasing terms of the oligarchy. The President pointed them to the Con- 
stitution, which recognised nothing but gold and silver as a legal tender ; and to 
the laws, which would receive nothing but gold and silver, or their equivalent, in 
payment of the public dues. But it was all in vain. 

Men who regarded such obligations as mere cob- webs, to be brushed aside when- 
ever they stood in the way of their interest or their advancement, could not conceive 
how others were so scrupulous in their observance. Their clamor and denuncia- 
tion grew louder and louder. They even had the cunning and the adroitness to cast 
on the Executive the odium of their own acts. Having debased their paper below 
the constitutional standard, they thereby created two currencies — the better for the 
Government, and the baser for the people — and made the salaries of Government 
officers ten or fifteen per cent, more valuable than the same nominal amount received 
by the people. This odious distinction was charged on the President ; he was 
charged with the design of ruining the people, and of fattening an army of office- 
holders on their misfortunes. Happily for the country, however, the President was 
possessed of a wisdom and a firmness which eminently fitted him for the crisis of 
the times. His duty was plain before him, and he steadily pursued it. He directed 
circulars to be sent to all the collectors, receivers, and disbursing officers, command- 
ing that nothing but gold and silver, or its equivalent, shall be received in payment 
of public dues, or disbursed in payment of public creditoi-s; and when Congress 
assembled in September, 1837, he recommended a total separation of bank and State — 
a complete divorce of Government from the embraces of the whole banking system. 

This measure constitutes the second grand epoch in the History of the Revolution 
through which we are now passing. The high tower of the oligarchy, their bastile 
of strength, had been hurled to the earth. Their thinking-head and controlling will 
had been taken from them ; but with the instinct of self-preservation they rallied 



16 

on the thousand other corporations prepared to their hand, seized the reins of Gov- 
ernment, and were well nigh overturning the institutions, and crushing the liberties 
of the people, when by one false move they stumbled and fell. At that critical junc- 
ture, at that providential period, the President of the United States, truly represent- 
ing the feelings and the interests of the people, lifted up the constitutional standard, 
and called on all who loved their country to come to the rescue, and save it from de- 
struction. Until this crisis in their affairs, the oligarchy had always been divided 
in their councils, and estranged from each other in their feelings. Those who had 
sustained the Bank of the United States were angry with that portion of the frater- 
nity who joined in putting it down, in order to build up their own petty institutions, 
and to usurp that autliority which properly belongs to a National Institution. The 
minor interests, on the other hand, were always jealous and suspicious, lest the greater 
should again wrest from them tthe power they felt themselves happy in having 
obtained ; but the whole craft was now endangered. Recent events had opened 
the eyes of the people, and they showed a determination to bring back that power 
which, by the laws of nature, and by their own Constitution, was vested in them ; 
but which, for nearly fifty years, had been lodged in the hands of associated wealth. 
In this state of things the oligarchy were not long in coming to their conclusions. 
They might quarrel with each other over the spoils in the hour of triumph and 
security, but a common danger from without would soon bring them together for 
mutual defence. 

Differing in no principle whatever, and slightly only in the detail of their mea- 
sures, the one advocating a United States Bank, the other a United States Banking 
System, the two wings of this great interest were resolved that their little rivalries for 
power and for interest should not be an obstacle in the way of a union against the 
common enemy. When the proposition, therefore, was made for a total divorce, all 
petty feuds were buried. Pilate and Herod made friends — entered into a close 
union — formed an alliance offensive and defensive, and have been ever since zealously 
cooperating to effect the same object — a re-union of the Government with the bank- 
ing interest. 

Notwithstanding the total failure of all their schemes ; notwithstanding it was 
obvious as day that the operations of their own hand had brought the calamities 
upon them, yet the Conservative wing of the oligarchy insisted that the specie cir- 
cular had done all the mischief; patched up another scheme of five and twenty banks, 
without doubt, embracing the old United States Bank, and urged that upon Con- 
gress for their adoption. They insisted that Government should take it in their em- 
braces — place their confidence in it, and thereby restore confidence in the people. If 
the Government refused to do this, they declared it would shake the credit of the 
banks, and of bank paper ; paralyze their ability to assist the energies of the people 
in recovering from the recent shock, and postpone indefinitely the possibility of 
resumption. 

The Federal wing of the oligarchy, who in former times, when this scheme was 
opposed to their own, condemned and ridiculed it, were now loud in its praises, and 
recommended it as a panacea to heal the maladies of the country. The Representa- 
tives of the people, however, awoke from the lethargy of long years, refused to adopt 
any such system. Yet none of the predicted evils have come to pass. Many of the 
banks finding that the Executive resolutely persisted in adhering to the constitution 
and the laws, and steadily refused having any dealings with them or their debased 
currency; finding that their friends in Congress were not strong enough to force 
him from that position ; and perceiving that public sentiment was rising against 
them, resolved immediately to fall back into their usual channels of business, and 
commence the curtailment and redemption of their paper issues. Mr. Biddle, how- 
ever, entrenched himself behind his cotton bags, and declared that he would not 
resume until the Government abandoned its position. All the banks South and 
West of him, being entirely under his control, were compelled to follow his example. 
But he, at length yielding to the considerations of interest, resumed specie payments 



17 

tJiat he might consummate a favorable contract with the Government, which they 
refused to complete until his notes were made equivalent to specie, and his vaults » 
legal depository, by a resumption of specie payment. Again following his example, 
all the banks South and West attempted to resume. Now we call on the people to 
bear in mind the history of this transaction— to treasure it up as a precious truth to 
be of infinite service hereafter. That by a steady adherence to the conslitutionaZ 
standard on the -part of the Government, the hanks have been compelled to come up 
to that standard. Their obvious design was to force the Government down to 
their level; to constrain them, as they had done the States, to legalize bank paper, 
and to receive and pay it out to public creditors. Let us suppose, for a mo- 
ment, they had succeeded in the accomplishment of their purposes. What would 
have been the consequences ? In many of the Atlantic States bank paper was 
depreciated about ten per cent. In the South and West it was depreciated, in 
many instances, five-and-twenty per cent. If the Government then had con- 
sented to receive bank paper, a nominal payment of one hundred dollars in the At- 
lantic States would have amounted to ninety dollars when valued by the constitu- 
tional standard : a similar payment in the South and West, estimated in the same 
way, would have amounted to seventy-five dollars,— a. loss in the one case of a 
tejith, and in the other, of a fourth of the entire revenue. Public creditors would have 
been paid in the same unequal proportions. Not to speak of the unconstitutionality 
and injustice of such a course, what effect would it have had on the morals and tem- 
per of the people "? Every one would strive to make the best of such a state of things, 
and to derive from it all the advantages he could. There would be the strongest in- 
ducement to all the States to depreciate their currency as much as possible, seeing 
that all have been placed on the same level by the Government. The constitutional 
standard being lost sight of, and the banks no longer required to keep their issues 
within a certain ratio to the precious metals on hand, would pour forth their paper 
rags without stint, until one dollar in silver would be worth a hundred, then two 
hundred, then four, then five hundred, constantly sinkinguntil finally the whole would 
come down a dead mass, and involve the honest farmers and laborers in utter ruin. 
Such were the consequences of excessive issues of continental money during the 
Revolution ; and of assignats in France ; and such would have been the consequences 
of the measures proposed and urged by the banks and their friends at the time of the 
suspension. And to such a condition are thcij resolved at last to bring us. At no 
period of pecuniary derangement and disaster, was the disproportion between bank 
issues and the specie for its redemption greater than at the present moment. 

The banks are immersed m a debt of more than one hundred and ten millions 
of dollars abroad, which at a moment's notice may drain the country of all its specie 
on a demand of foreign capitalists. From a tabular statement of the returns of the 
local banks throughout the United States, received at the Treasury Department, for 
the period nearest January, 1839, it appears that the loans, discounts, and circulation 
of the banks there enumerated, exceeded the total amount of redemption specie by 
four hundred and seventy millions of dollars. 

The necessary results are beginning to appeai-, banks are suspending and blowing 
up in every section of the Union. A sky-rocket at regular intervals is shot into the 
heavens as a signal of distress. Alarm and agitation pervade the whole fraternity, 
and at no distant period we may look for another panic and general prostration. 
But notwithstanding these threatening signs of the times, the bank mania is evidently 
on the increase. We daily hear from the State Legislatures, of new creations of 
banks, and enlargement of the capital of old ones, and the incorporation of inter- 
nal improvement companies with banking privileges. A new impulse, a perfect 
steam-engine propulsion, has recently been given by the introduction of what is 
called the free banking system. Be it known that we are friendly to a free banking 
system based on specie and real capital, and confined strictly to trading and com- 
mercial purposes. But the free banking system now in fashion is the monstrum hor- 
rendum of this present Revolution, and is destined to play more havoc with the 
2 



18 

morals, fortunes, and liberties of the people, than the famed guillotine with the heads 
of men. 

Judging of its spirit and final development from what has already been done, we 
may fairly infer that issues of this new invention will in a short time equal in nom- 
inal value the entire property, both personal and real, of the whole Union. Mort- 
gages on real estate, negroes, and stocks, thereby embracing every kind of property, 
will be made the basis of banking operations ; and every one fearing that his neigh- 
bor may derive more advantages from it than himself, will eagerly pledge his for- 
tune, and press into the scheme, so that the people and the banks will be involved 
and entangled with each other in paper credits in some form or other, to the entire 
amount of property in the country. Now, when we consider that a circulating 
medium sufficient for all business purposes is only required to bear a certain ratio, 
one-fifth or one-twentieth, as some make it, to the annual productions — a currency such 
as ours is destined to be, — equaling in nominal value — not only the annual produc- 
tions, but the entire property of the community, both personal and real, must sink 
down of its own weight ; its enormous over proportions nuist crumble it in, and crush 
it into a mass of ruins. The whole circulation must become spurious and worthless — 
a world of ; promises without the intention or capacity of fulfilment — a bottomless 
gulf of falsehoods, in which all things, public and private, are doomed to sink and 
disappear. But do the original inventors of the falsehood, the cunning forger of the 
lies, suffer the smart of their detection and protest '? Oh, no ! Oh, no ! that were 
some compensation, but far otherwise is the result. Lies, and the burthen of evil, 
they bring are passed on, shifted from back to back, and from rank to rank — and so 
land ultimately on the hard labouring mass who with spade and mattock, with sore 
heart and empty loallct, daily come in co7itact with reality — a7id can pass the cheat no 
further. 

Then will the tyrant come, and, like another Neptune, will ride over the troubled 
billows, wave his omnipotent trident, bid the waters cease their commotions, roll 
back into the caves, and be hushed, and forever after will reign in undisputed sway 
with a rod of iron. Such will be the end of the Revolution, dimly shadowed forth 
because the reality has yet to come. But if the events do not fulfil our words, then 
say we are false prophets, and have not rightly warned the people ; yet we are deeply 
impressed with a consciousness that the truth only has been delineated, and unless the 
people take heed in time, such must be their inevitable doom. If they will not heed 
our voice of warning, we pray them to learn wisdom from their own experience. 
Look back on the history of the oligarchy for the last fifty years, such as we have 
portrayed, it and such as we know it to have been, and what do we find 1 Repeated 
acts of violence on the constitution ; a continued prostitution of the laws for selfish 
and fraudulent purposes — and a total perversion of Government to the oppression and 
ruin of the people, and the aggrandisement of themselves. Our fathers declared, even 
before the constitution was formed, that the principles and the favorite measures of 
the oligarchy " ?6-c?T incompatible with the public safety, totally destructive of that 
equality ivhich ought to prevail in a republic." The bitter experience of half a cen- 
tury has impressed upon us the truth of their anticipations, yet we linger! still hesi- 
tate to go forward and meet the lowering front of the enemy. Are you prepared 
then, sons of America ! tamely to yield up the hereditary franchises of more than 
two centuries, and the birthright of your fathers, won by their blood and treasure. 
Are you prepared as degenerate sons to receive the chains which are forging for you 1 
To bow in willing submission to the yoke inimical interests are about to bind 
upon your necks. If your hearts have not been tamed by long years of usurpation, 
and your spirits enervated by the degeneracy of the times; if you still love liberty, 
and the blessings of independence, and are willing to lifl a hand in their defence, then 
come and rally around the standard of the Constitution. That has been planted on 
a rock — eternal as the rock of ages — truth, justice, and the rights of man — princi- 
ples understood, felt, and practised by your fathers, and bequeathed to you as the 
greatest blessings that could be conferred by a race of patriots, heroes, and statesmen. 



19 

■ Amidst the difficulties that beset us, and in view of the dangers that threaten, in 
those eternal principles alone can we find safety; on them alone we may repose 
with an assurance that they will bear us through every peril. You have but little un- 
derstood them, never practised them. From the foundation of the Government, you 
have been in the hands of an oligarchy, lead, duped, deceived by them. For forty 
years have they led you through the wilderness, and at length brought you to the 
point whence you started — taxation without representation. As you love your sal- 
vation, then, come out from among them. Have charity to believe they do not ma- 
liciously design your subjugation; pity and forgive, but eschew their ways, 
abandon their doctrines, their principles, their institutions, which are sinking you 
into ruin, and plant yourselves, ere it be too late, on the rock of the Constitution. 
What are the doctrines of the Constitution on that great question now before you— 
which for forty years has been the source of endless perplexities, and has at length 
come up for decision — which peculiarly constitutes the crisis of the times, and on 
which the great battle for independence and dominion has to be fought? As truth 
always is, they are few, simple, intelligible. They require that legislation shall not 
be perverted from the common defence and general welfare, to promote the interests 
of a few sections, classes, or individuals ; that no more revenues shall be collected 
than are necessary for the economical administration of a Government limited to a 
few general and specified objects ; that they shall be collected in actual values, gold 
and silver, and not in spurious promises; shall be safely kept by sworn and chosen 
officers of the Government, under high penalties for the faithful discharge of their 
duties; shall not be long retained or accumulated, so as to be a temptation to the offi- 
cer to use, and to the representative to misapply them ; but promptly employed for the 
purposes tliey were collected, and thence returned into tlie ordinary channels of trade. 
These are the principles of the Constitution, which must bring home conviction to 
every mind ; these are the doctrines the present Administration have embraced as 
their own , on which they liave staked their salvation, and now call upon the people 
to come up to their support and defence. And most assuredly will they come. Can 
any one hesitate 1 Is there one so besotted by the delusions of party, so en- 
tangled in its meshes, that he is afraid to venture on these simple truths ? Then 
let him go ; he is unworthy the name of a freeman. Afraid to trust the principles of 
the Constitution! As well might the Cln-lstian be afraid of his Bible. When the 
spirit of reformation comes upon the clmrch, after long years of corruption and 
heresy, where does she look for guides to lead her through the mazes of a tangled 
labyrinth — to the practices and homilies of fallible, designing men, or to the oracles 
of inspiration 1 And in this day of political corruption and heresy, the spirit of 
reformation has seized on the people, and to the oracles of the Constitution must they 
look for their guides. 

Resolved no longer to be duped and deceived, they are rousing themselves as one 
man, and coming forth to the battle ; already do we feel the deep ground-swellings 
that precede the rolling of the mighty billows; even now do we hear their voice, 
mighty and terrible, like the voice of many waters. Onward they come, an innume- 
rable host, eagerly pressing into the last Waterloo-field; aye — a more than Waterloo- 
field — nobler principles, deeper interests, are stalled upon its issue ; such a field as was 
fought on the plains of heaven, when angel and archangel, principalities and powers, 
were assembled to prove the strength of Omnipotence over the prince of darkness. 
And shall the sovereign decrees of the same almighty lawgiver, holy and just, pre- 
vail on earth, is now the theme to be determined. Shall man, the workmanship of his 
hands, endowed with faculties divine, and made heir of immortality, live according 
to the laws of his nature, enjoy the birth-rights of his creation, tread the green earth, 
breathe the limpid air untrammelled, live by the sweat of his own brow, enjoy the 
fruits of his own toil, and as free of limb, so be free of heart; free to choose his mode 
of happiness, and to follow the impulses of that divine, ever-active principle pervading 
all things, existing in all natures, and strongest in his own bosom to subvert its 



20 

noxious qualities, to sweep away infection, and suppress all eviH or shall be live in 
servitude to his fellow man — till the earth, and bear its fruits an offering to a fellow 
worm ; walk prone and cowering like a brute, employed as a tool, an implement or 
passive thing, without acknowledgment of right or interest in the end ; his soul made 
abject, to be abused as selfishness may prompt, made weak in all good, and strong 
alone in evil 1 Shall this, the only spot on earth where man enjoys the high behests 
of Heaven, and marches onward to fulfil the laws of his creation, cease to glory in 
its privileges ; the star of hope to all nations be blotted from the firmament ; and the 
peace and good will on earth ordained, of God, be put far back unto generations yet 
unborn 1 These are the mighty interests thrown into the scales of perilous war — the 
precious jewels cast on the uncei'tain tide of this revolution. Conscious of the awful 
wagers staked upon the issue, the arch-enemy of truth and human kind, the grand 
hierarch of apostacy, plies every enginery that malice or the dread of falling fortunes 
can invent, to dupe and draw into his train states and principalities, and men of 
every g rade, regardless of the means, as is his wont, so that the end may be obtained. 
Amid the many thousands who have fallen a prey to his seductive arts, and tlie 
shrewd appliances of private ends and selfish interests, there is one at least who 
proves a faithful Abdiel. 

Among the faitliless, faithful only he ; 

Among the innumerable, false, unmoved, 

Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified I 

Nor number, nor example with him wrought 

To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, 

Though single. From amidst them forth he passed, 

And with retorted scorn his back he turned 

On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed ! 

And who is this faithful Abdiell The standard of a mighty State he bears, 
scorning to hold allegiance with apostacy ; foremost in the rank he moves, bearing 
aloft a fit emblem of the State he is proud to serve; a goddess erect and calm, though 
treading chains and tyranny beneath her feet ; a banner, which never waved 
o'er craven hearts or faltering lines ; a surer harbinger of victory than the Prior's 
sacred relique, on uplifted spear, in Flodden field. 

Renowned old commonwealth ! Ancientest, purest, noblest, of the train of vestal 
sisters, who feed the flame on freedom's altar ! When first the tyrant came, with 
holy zeal, she fought against him, and flung upon the breeze her thrilling war-cry, 
Give me liberly or give me death ! which now is echoed back with cheerful voice 
by her thousand sons. First, to read aright the charter of human liberties, and pluck it 
from the grasp of ruthless enemies ; again, she comes to save it from pervertion and 
the taint of treacherous friends. Ever prodigal of her wealth and of her sons, in liberty's 
defence; — pre-eminent she stands in deeds and sacrifice; and yet, above them all, she 
values most, virtue, honor, and the sacred cause of truth. Scorning selfishness and 
low ambition, one end alone she seeks — the common good. Who fails to study 
that, although her son, she will repudiate. Even now a lesson she is teaching, fraught 
with more of good to human kind than all the lessons of the schools — a lesson which 
the world must learn ere Government can rest on sure and just foundations — that law 
and truth, and principle alone, not feeble man, must be a nation's guide ; that no dis- 
tinction, eminence or service, can compensate the loss of those great truths of which 
she is alike the guardian and the foster mother. 



IN PRESS 

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MADISON'^'NATIONAL WORK 



DEBATES IN THE CONGRESS OF THE CONFEDERATION, 

AS TAKEN IN THE YEARS 1782, '83 AND 1787, BY J 

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THEN A MEMBER, 

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PERIODS OF HIS SERVICE IN THAT CONGRESS 

AND 

DEBATES IN THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 176 

BY JAMES MADISON, A MEMBER. 



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THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW. 

The following resolutions passed in favor of the Democratic Review will show the estimatio 
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From the proceedings of the Democratic Convention at Worcester, Massachusetts. 

'< Resolved, That among other instances of this recent employment of the Press in the causi 
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truly national periodical which a previous Convention recommended to the Democracy of Mai 
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litical literature, but as the organ of a sound political philosophy, worthy of the spirit of the age 
illustrate and defend the great cause of equality against privilege." 



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Resolved, That we esteem the United States Magazine and Democratic Review as a powe 
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in the State of New Jersey, for their support, it sustains with boldness and distinguished abil 
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